prisoner's base

any of various children's games in which each of two teams has a home base where members of the opposing team are kept prisoner after being tagged or caught and from which they can be freed only in specified ways.

Also called prison base.

Origin

late Middle English

1590-1600

1590-1600; compare late Middle Englishbace prisoner's base, perhaps from the phrase bringen bas to lay low, cause to surrender; later taken as an assimilated form of bars, plural of bar1, or as base1 (though the sense “goal or starting point” originated with this game)